


Humanity (Or, Why You Shouldn't Mess With Mad Science 101)

by Longitudinalwave



Category: Transformers Generation One
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 17,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29099796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Longitudinalwave/pseuds/Longitudinalwave
Summary: Megatron's latest scheme goes terribly wrong for two of the gestalt teams under his command.This is my take on the (rather goofy) plotline wherein Transformers get turned into humans.
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Thanks for checking out my story!
> 
> This story basically takes place in the G1 cartoon universe and is my take on a story I've seen done numerous times. Hopefully, it's not too cliche or annoying. 
> 
> This story will have multiple narrators, but the switches in narrator will be delegated by chapters, so it should be fairly easy to follow.

Combaticon Commander Onslaught, Mission Report: At 0600 hours, approximately twelve of Earth’s planetary rotations ago, my fellow Combaticons and I arrived at the following coordinates-41.8178 degrees North, 87.6298 degrees west-along with the rest of the unit, in preparation for an attack on the city, the purpose of which was to draw the Autobots to us so that Communications Officer Soundwave could use the “Factorm Carnem” on them. The weapon in question had been constructed by Constructicon Commander and Engineer Scrapper, Surgical Engineer Hook, and Constructicon Chemist Mixmaster, but it had not yet been tested and was not even fully constructed when Lord Megatron ordered it to be brought to the battlefield. When the Autobots arrived, at 0620 hours, a skirmish predictly broke out. At 0702 hours, the Stunticons merged into the Super Warrior Menasor, and, at 0705 hours, the Combaticons and I formed the Super Warrior Bruticus. I ordered the merge in response to the Protectobots merging to become the Super Warrior Defensor. From what I was later told by Stunticon Scout Breakdown, Autobot Special Operations Officer Jazz lured Menasor to the Factorm Carnem and tricked him into smashing part of the weapon at 0707 hours. The Autobot was evidently quick enough to remove himself from the blast radius, but Bruticus was punched into the same radius by Defensor at 0708 hours, just as the weapon exploded. At this point, I was knocked unconscious. I do not know the precise time at which I awoke, because when I awoke, I no longer had an internal chronometer. I do, however, suspect that I woke up no later than 0830 hours, given the general position of the Earth’s star at the time of my regaining consciousness. The first thing I noticed upon awakening was that the Autobots had vacated the area. The second thing that came to my attention was something much more disconcerting: namely, that my frame had been altered in every conceivable fashion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blast Off is terribly offended by this whole situation.

Combaticon Space Warrior Blast Off, Mission Report: As always, my commander is a master of understatement. Our forms had not just been changed, they had been degraded! I regained consciousness when I felt someone shaking me awake. My immediate response was a desire to attack the human who had the gall to touch my beautiful frame, but it was quickly replaced by concern when I realized that the human was far too large compared to me, and then disgust when I looked at my own hand and saw that it was made of flesh rather than metal. 

“What happened to my beautiful frame?” I cried. 

“Blast Off?” the human who had touched me asked. He sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place his voice. I blame unbearable stress for the question I asked next. 

“How do you know my name?’ 

“Because we’ve worked together for years, and I recognized your voice. Don’t you recognize mine?” By this point, the immediate panic had subsided, and I quickly put two and two together.

“Onslaught?” 

“Affirmative.” 

“How did you know where to find me?” 

‘“Simple. Since we were all caught in the explosion of the Factorm Carnem, its intended purpose was to turn Cybertronians into flesh creatures, and it had clearly worked in my case, I deduced that it was more than likely that the four humans lying closest to me were my teammates, similarly transformed. That was how I knew who and where you were when I woke you.” I nodded. It was, as one would expect from Onslaught, a logical explanation. Then, out of a desire to make sure that I would be able to recognize him once he left my immediate line of sight-all flesh creatures look so similar!-I pursued his features and attire. He was rather tall for a human, probably about 1.9 meters or six feet two inches tall, although I was slightly taller, and his “skin” was of a darker tone than mine. He had dark “hair”, cut very close to the “scalp” in what the humans evidently call a “buzz cut”, and dark brown “eyes” . Beyond that, he was (thankfully) clothed in a military “uniform”, complete with badges. (The vocabulary used in the preceding description, and all following descriptions, comes primarily from Swindle, who was quite familiar with human culture even before the incident that I am now describing.)

“What now?”

“We wake up the others, and decide the rest from there.” With that, we walked over to the next closest body. This one, like Onslaught, had dark “hair”, brown “eyes”, and “skin” of a darker shade than mine, but, unlike Onslaught, I could tell by looking at his prone form that he would not be very tall even by human standards. He was clothed in a grey “shirt”, a black “jacket”, dark “jeans”, and “gym shoes”, and his “hair” was quite a bit longer than Onslaught’s. Onslaught shook him awake, and, after a few seconds of silence, he gave the loudest shriek I’ve ever heard anyone give. Said shriek also identified him as Vortex. 

“I’m grounded! I can’t fly I can’t fly I can’t fly! I’m  **grounded** !” He wailed. Up until that point, I hadn’t really realized that being transformed into a human also meant that I would be unable to fly. I was, of course, aware that humans were unable to fly under their own power, but I had not really applied that to myself until Vortex started screaming about it, and the realization was quite upsetting. 

“Vortex! Pull yourself together!” Onslaught barked. 

“On-Onslaught?” Vortex asked.

“Unfortunately, yes. The other... **man** ….is Blast Off,” Onslaught replied. Vortex snickered, his inability to fly evidently momentarily forgotten. 

“Ha! You’re even uglier now than you were before, Blast Off!” he said I scowled at him, but it had no effect (as usual). Then he seemed to remember that, he, too, had been turned into a human, and his mirth disappeared. 

“Onslaught, I can’t fly! What am I gonna do? I’ll go crazy if I’m stuck on the ground!” 

“For now, you are going to ignore your inability to fly, as we have far more pressing concerns,’ Onslaught replied sternly. He pulled Vortex to his feet, allowing me to estimate Vortex’s height at 1.75 meters, or five feet nine inches, tall, and lead Vortex and I to a body that almost certainly belonged to Brawl. Like Vortex and Onslaught before him, he had dark “hair”, brown “eyes’, and “skin” that was darker than mine. His “hair” was cut fairly short and largely hidden under a green “hat’, and he was clad in a camouflage-print “t-shirt”, khaki “cargo pants”, and combat “boots”. When Onslaught shook him awake, Brawl jumped to his feet and swung at him, only narrowly missing. 

“Brawl! Stand down!” Onslaught barked. Obedient as he is, Brawl immediately complied. 

“Onslaught? Where are you? Why is your voice coming from a squishy?” he asked, looking around in confusion and allowing me to estimate his height at 1.82 meters, or six feet, tall. Although he was slightly shorter than Onslaught and I, he was considerably stockier. 

“He **is** the squishy, dummy. Right now, we’re all squishies, and Blast Off is really ugly and I’m grounded,” Vortex replied, still sounding decidedly miffed about his loss of flight. I was equally miffed about his insistence on reminding me that I no longer had my beautiful and powerful frame. 

“Why are we dressing up as squishies? Aren’t we a little big for that to work?” I sighed in exasperation. Brawl’s idiocy is hard enough to deal with on a good day, let alone the worst day of my life. 

“We aren’t pretending to be humans, Brawl. Megatron’s machine turned us into humans when it exploded,” I said slowly, making sure to enunciate each word. After about a minute, Brawl gave out a horrified bellow, having finally grasped what had happened. Then he punched Vortex.

“OW! What was that for?” Vortex demanded. A disgusting red fluid dripped from his nose.

“I don’t understand how I’m a squishy, but most bad things that happen to me are your fault, so you must have caused this somehow,” Brawl replied. 

“For once, I think Vortex is innocent, Brawl,” a familiar voice said. It came from a small man, clad in black “dress shoes”, a hideously tacky yellow “suit”, and a somehow even more hideously tacky bright purple “tie”. From lack of taste, and by process of elimination, it was clear that this was Swindle. Like his brothers, he had dark “hair”, darker “skin” than mine, and brown eyes, and his “hair” stopped at his neckline. He was also by far the shortest of us, standing at only about 1.65 meters, or five feet five inches, tall. 

“Hey, Stumpy,” Vortex said. 

“All right. You two are Vortex and Brawl, so the military man is Onslaught, and Blast Off must be the tall guy in the fancy suit. Hi, Psycho Copter-well, I guess you’re just Psycho now. Hi, Psycho,” Swindle replied. Vortex scowled at him, clearly not happy to be reminded of the fact that he was no longer a helicopter.

“You guessed our identities correctly, Swindle. Now, since you are the most knowledgeable about humans, what do you think our immediate course of action should be?” Onslaught said. 

“You don’t need Swindle! You’ve got us!” a familiar, but unwelcome, voice announced. We had not been the only Decepticons to be affected by the Factorm Carnem. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Stunticons are doomed. Dead End is sure of it.

Stunticon Warrior Dead End, Mission Report: The filling out of this report is utterly futile, as we will all soon perish in the heat death of the universe, but, as I have no affinity for pain, I shall fill it out regardless, lest I suffer for disobeying Lord Megatron. As is our lot in life, my fellow Stunticons and I were turned into human beings by the Factorm Carnem alongside the Combaticons. We were, after all, forged to suffer. And, of course, I was the first of my team to awake, because I in particular am nothing more than a plaything for some malevolent power. I was first surprised to find myself waking up at all; then wearily resigned to my fate when I looked at my hands and legs and realized that I had been transmogrified into a human form, one which lacked all of the appeal of my original body. I was not altogether surprised to find that this had happened to me. After all, my appearance was the only part of my life that was even remotely tolerable, so, of course, the malevolent power was going to take it away from me eventually, and what better way to do it than to make me a flesh creature? As I debated whether or not it was worth the effort to try to survive in such a fragile body, another human form stirred-and then smiled in utter relief.

“I’m human! Now no one will stare at me!” This, of course, enabled me to identify it as Breakdown. He was perhaps five feet and seven inches tall, about the same size as my human form, and he was wearing a cerulean sweater, white shoes, and grey pants. His hair was a light brown color, as were his eyes, and his skin was as pale as mine.

“Such optimism is unrealistic, my dear Breakdown. In all likelihood, the humans will realize that we are not truly like them with great haste and subsequently have us all killed.” I replied. 

“D-Dead End?” Breakdown asked, sounding surprised. 

“Yes. The others are likely in this area as well...that is, assuming that we are not the only two who were affected. If that is the case, our dear brothers will undoubtedly step on us for sport,” I said. Breakdown whimpered. A few seconds later, two more humans raced up to us, almost knocking me down in the process. One had blonde hair and brown eyes, and wore a yellow sports jersey, yellow running shorts, and white gym shoes, and the other had a shock of red hair and brown eyes, and wore a tye-dyed t-shirt, jean shorts, and what appeared to be bunny slippers. They were approximately as tall as Breakdown and I. The man in the bunny slippers was undoubtedly Wildrider, which meant that his companion was most likely Drag Strip. 

“I’m Dead End, and that’s Breakdown. Are you two Drag Strip and Wilrider?” I asked.

“Yeah, we are. Dead End, I’ve been turned into a flesh creature! How am I gonna be the fastest car this planet’s ever seen now?” Drag Strip whined. I didn’t respond. His dream had been futile from the start, so our new condition changed nothing. 

“Don’t worry, Drag Strip. I’m sure we’ll get turned back into cars eventually. And if not, we can make preserves and churn butter and sew like Laura!” Wildrider said. For context, when we left Wildrider alone in our quarters a few weeks ago, he stumbled upon some reruns of “Little House on the Prairie” and managed to become utterly convinced that it was a documentary of modern human life despite all evidence to the contrary. Before anyone could formulate a response to this, we were approached by a fifth human, one who was impressively tall by human standards, most likely at least six feet and seven inches tall. He had brown eyes and dark brown hair, although his hair was mostly hidden by a trucker hat, and he was wearing a grey shirt, heavy black boots, and dark overalls. With a sinking feeling, I realized that this human was most likely Motormaster. 

“All right, you lot, who’s who?” he demanded, confirming my suspicions. 

“I am Dead End, although I doubt that I will be alive as such for much longer. The man in the yellow clothes is Drag Strip, the man in the blue sweater is Breakdown, and the bunny slippered individual is Wildrider,” I replied. 

“Hey, boss! Guess what? We got turned into squishies! Isn’t that neat? ” Wildrider asked, sounding entirely too cheerful about the situation. In response, Motormaster grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off of the ground. Breakdown let out a frightened whine. 

“We’ve been trapped in forms that are so weak that I could kill you just by squeezing your neck too hard! Do you still think this is neat, punk? DO YOU?” Motormaster snarled, as he started to squeeze Wildrider’s neck and threatened to cut off his windpipe. (Human anatomy uses a variety of colorful and bizarre terminology.) 

“N-no, boss,” Wildrider said weakly, and Motormaster dropped him to the ground. 

“Good. Remember that the next time you say somethin’ stupid.” Wildrider got to his feet, albeit shakily, and then another group of humans, this one apparently in the middle of a fight, caught our attention. Motormaster, never one to avoid a fight, lead us over to them to see what was going on, and, as we grew closer, we overheard one of them call the others by the names of the Combaticons. Thus, we realized, to our mixed relief (since there were five fewer Decepticons who might attempt to step on us) and horror, that they must have been turned into humans as well. 

“You guessed our identities correctly, Swindle. Now, since you are the most knowledgeable about humans, what do you think our immediate course of action should be?” a human who was dressed in a military uniform, and thus was probably Onslaught, asked. Before Swindle could respond to his commander’s inquiry, Drag Strip strutted forward and said,

“You don’t need Swindle! You’ve got us!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Swindle's duplicity finally comes in handy.

Combaticon Munitions Expert Swindle, Mission Report: I hope this doesn’t take too long. I’ve got a very important customer to get back to, and I can’t afford any delays. Anyway, on to the report….

“Who are you?” Onslaught demanded of the new arrival. Before the blonde human could say anything else, he was shoved out of the way by a much larger human, one that was taller than even Blast Off’s human form. 

“I’m Motormaster, and the other idiots are my Stunticons. What happened to us?” he demanded. Since his voice was unmistakable and there was no good reason for a normal human to know Motormaster’s name, there was no need to question his claim. 

“We were caught in the explosion of the Factorm Carnem, and the energy it produced turned us into flesh creatures. Since it was designed to turn the Autobots into flesh creatures so we could more easily eliminate them, that isn’t terribly surprising,” Onslaught replied. 

“So how do we fix it?” Motormaster asked. 

“Yeah, boss. How are we gonna get our old bodies back? I can’t be grounded for the rest of my life!” Vortex whined. 

“Therein lies the problem. I am not sure if the process is reversible, and even if it is, it will undoubtedly take some time for us to be returned to our true frames. Thus, figuring out how to survive in these forms, as distasteful as the idea is, should be our first course of action,” Onslaught replied. 

‘That’s why it’s good that you’ve got us! We know all about humans,” the blonde human, who I now guessed was Drag Strip, boasted, at which point I put on my winning smile and tossed in my two cents on the subject. As amusing as it would have been to let the Stunticons teach my teammates how to be human, it was better for my long-term survival if I prevented too much misinformation from being spread around. 

“I’d advise that you take anything they say on humans with a grain of salt, Onslaught. They may spend all their free time watching human television, but they’re not very good at discerning between genres-or, for that matter, between fictional shows and documentaries. If you listen solely to them, they’ll have you believing that humans can just shrug off a gunshot to the shoulder and that humans subsist solely on pizza, fast food, chips, and candy for fuel, neither of which is remotely true,” I said. 

“Well, if humans fuel with more substances than that, then why aren’t there any commercials for other substances?” Drag Strip asked. 

“Simple: capitalism. It’s really a brilliant move on the part of the humans’ fuel industry: convince people that consuming junk will make them happy, and they’ll shell out loads of money for it at a decreased cost to you. In fact, it’s just what I’d do in their place. Say what you want about the fragility of humans, but they’re brilliant at making money,” I replied. 

“No wonder you spend so much time with the disgusting creatures. They all think like you,” Blast Off muttered. I laughed. 

“Hey, you should be grateful that I spend so much time with humans. If I didn’t, we’d be reliant on the Stunticons for advice on human society, and trust me,  _ that _ would be a disaster.” Motormaster scowled.

“Well, if you’re so smart, what do we do now?” he asked. I stepped a few feet back from him before I responded. 

“If we’re going to be stuck living as humans for any length of time, the first thing we’re going to need is human identities. Humans don’t call themselves things like “Onslaught” or “Motormaster”. Luckily, at least as far as we Combaticons are concerned, we already have human identities.” Onslaught looked at me curiously.

“How is that possible?” he asked. 

“I carry out a lot of trading with various humans, and, in some cases, I needed a human identity so they didn’t question who they were buying from, so I hacked into the database of the government of this part of the planet-it’s called the United States, for those who don’t know-and gave all five of us legal human identities. I’m Jacob Dell, you’re Grant Dell, Vortex is Patrick Dell, Brawl is Andy Dell, and Blast Off is Benjamin St. Michael,” I replied. My teammates stared at me.

“I can understand why you might need a human identity, but why exactly did you assign human identities to all of us? You can’t possibly have anticipated that something like this would happen,” Onslaught asked. 

“Oh, that was also for trade purposes. You see, when I was carrying out particularly tricky deals, I sometimes needed a shield, and giving you human identities was a convenient way to make one. I think Patrick- that is, Vortex- owes the United States government $10,000 in unpaid taxes because of one of those deals,” I replied.

“Why am I not surprised?” Blast Off muttered.

“You made a human identity for me and then  **didn’t pay that identity’s taxes** ? Great, now I’m gonna get arrested for tax evasion or something!” Vortex exclaimed angrily.

“Hey, it’s not like I expected your human identities to become important to you,” I protested. Luckily, he didn’t immediately attack me, although he definitely looked like he wanted to. 

“And Onslaught wonders why I wanna kill you,” he muttered.

“What about us?” Motormaster demanded. 

“You’ll have to come up with your own identities. I can probably get them into the system given enough time, but you don’t legally exist in human society yet,” I replied. 

“Can I call myself Laura?” one of the red headed humans with Motormaster asked. From his voice, and his request, I knew he was Wildrider. 

“Wildrider, that is the name of a human female. You are male,” I said, in the same tone that I use on Brawl. Wildrider looked disappointed. 

“But I don’t know any other human names!” he complained. 

“Yeah, and the only human names the rest of us know are names like Indiana Jones and Bruce Wayne and Spock. No one would believe that any of those are our real names,” Drag Strip added. I decided to be nice and not point out that Spock wasn’t even human. It would have just confused him. 

“All right, then I’ll come up with names for you. It’s not that hard once you get used to their naming system. Dead End, you can be Drew Eastwood, and since you’re brothers, you can all have the same last name. Motormaster, we’ll call you Tom, Breakdown, you can be Brandon, Drag Strip, you’re Darryl, and Wildrider-” At this point, I was cut off. 

“I’ll be Laura!” Wildrider exclaimed. 

“Didn’t you hear him, scrap-for-CPUs? Laura is a female’s name!” Drag Strip sneered. 

“So?” I rolled my eyes.

“So, if you call yourself Laura, you’ll attract a lot of unnecessary attention,” I explained. 

“But I like attention!” At this point, Motormaster grabbed him, and he squealed. 

“You ain’t callin’ yourself Laura! Got it?” Motormaster snapped. 

“Y-yes, boss,” Wildrider squeaked, and Motormaster released him. 

“And Wildrider can be Walter,” I said. 

“Uh, what was my name again?” Brawl asked. I sighed wearily and wondered just how I had become responsible for not one, but two, units of lunatics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Becoming human isn't even the fourth weirdest thing Wildrider's experienced today.

Stunticon Terrorist Wildrider, Mission Report (as transcribed by Dead End): Oh, look, a banana! Huh? Oh, right, you want me to talk about being a flesh creature. It was a lot of fun! Don’t listen to the other guys. They’re just grumpy, and if you don’t believe me, you can ask Mr. Fluffernutter. I still don’t know why I didn’t get to call myself Laura, but Walter was a fun name too. So, after we all got our names, I saw a flying cow, and then Onslaught said,

“Brawl, the name you will be using amongst the humans is Andy Dell. Should you forget it, one of us will cover for you. Do not give your real name.” 

“Yes, boss,” a really muscular squishy in cargo pants replied, and I figured out that he was Brawl, because I’m really smart sometimes. 

“I’m  grounded ,” a human in a leather jacket whined.

“We heard you the first three times, Tex,” Swindle replied. 

“You’re a fine one to talk, Stumpy. I can’t fly, I’m stuck in an incredibly fragile form, and I’m probably gonna get arrested for your tax evasion, and  you didn’t lose anything! You spend so much time with the flesh creatures you practically were one even before this happened!” A potato waved at me, and then Vortex pulled out a knife from the inside of his jacket and threatened Swindle with it. Breakdown made his squeaky toy noise, and Dead End looked even gloomier than usual when he saw what was happening, but Swindle didn’t seem scared. 

“Knock it off, Tex. You know that you can’t afford to kill me. I’m the only one of us who knows enough about human society to survive in it,” he said, and he flashed his big smile, which is made of a piece of the sun. That’s why it’s so bright. 

“Swindle is correct, Vortex. He is tactically invaluable in this situation. You are not allowed to kill or maim him,” Onslaught added. 

“But Onslaught-” 

“That is final, soldier! If you so much as look at him the wrong way, I  will find a closet and lock you in it for an hour.” Vortex scowled and put the knife away. He actually looked a little scared, and he never looks scared. Then a family of rabbits had a tea party on his head.

“And if I see you tryin’ to kill him, I’ll crack your head open. I ain’t about to die as a human, and Swindle’s my only ticket outta this situation,” Motormaster said. Then he punched Drag Strip.

“OW! What was that for?” 

“Because you’re a stupid, arrogant little braggart, and because I wanted to give Psycho Chopper a little demonstration of what’ll happen to him if he don’t do what I say.”

“Not that it matters, since we are undoubtedly doomed to die as disgusting, hideous organics, but why is threatening to lock Vortex in a closet an effective deterrent against his churlish behavior?” Dead End asked. I have no idea what “churlish” or “deterrent” means, but they sure sound cool! 

“It is quite simple, really. In addition to his fear of being grounded, which all Cybertronians with a flying alternate mode share, Vortex is intensely claustrophobic,” said a human in a brown suit. He sounded a little like Dead End himself, so I figured out that he was Blast Off. I’m a smart cookie!

“What’s  that mean?” Motormaster demanded.

“It means, dear leader, that Vortex is afraid of being enclosed in small spaces,” Dead End replied. 

“Why didn’t he just say so, then?”

“Because, unlike you and your pack of ill-bred ruffians, I am actually literate,” Blast Off said. 

“What’s literate?” This time, it was Drag Strip asking the question.

“It means he can read, dear brother,” Dead End replied. 

“Readin’? That’s for prissy snobs like you and cowards like Breakdown,” Motormaster said. 

“But B-b-boss, I can’t read! You told me I wasn’t allowed to, remember? and I’d never disobey you, because y-y-you’re always right,” Breakdown said. 

“Shut up!” Motormaster bellowed. Then he whacked Breakdown, which made one of Breakdown’s optics go all puffy. It also made lots of flowers fall out of the sky, though, so it wasn’t all bad. 

“Enough! This is not the time for petty arguments!” Onslaught exclaimed. 

“Who put you in charge? You ain’t nothin’ but a washed-up has-been-and worse, you’re a traitor!” Motormaster yelled back. In response, Onslaught walked up to him and said,

“Prove that I’m a has-been, and you can call the shots.” 

“You challenging me to a fight, old mech?” 

“Are you up for it?” 

“Even as a flesh creature, I’m the toughest there is. Of course I’m up for it! But don’t worry, grandpa. I’ll go easy on ya.” With that, Motormaster yelled really loudly and charged at Onslaught, who moved quickly to the side, causing Motormaster to miss him. Motormaster growled, turned around, and tried to hit him again, but Onslaught dodged him, shoved his palm hard into Motormaster’s nose, and then kneed him in the abdomen. Motormaster bent over, swore really loudly, and then started purging his tanks-er, stomach. That’s what humans have instead of fuel tanks. Neat, huh? The stuff that came out of his mouth looked really gross and smelled really bad, though, and that wasn’t so neat. 

“Do you yield?” Onslaught asked. Motormaster finished purging and straightened up, but his nose was still bent in a funny way, and it was dripping red stuff. I think it’s called Kool-Aid.

“Yeah. But only until we get our bodies back,” Motormaster replied. 

“Good. Now, our next order of business is to find a temporary place of shelter. Swindle, how should we go about doing this?” At this point, Swindle, Onslaught, Blast Off, and Dead End started talking about stuff I didn’t understand, and then a really nice fairy princess showed up. I had a long conversation with her that Dead End won’t let me tell you about, and then Drag Strip elbowed me. 

“Swindle says he got us reservations at a hotel, and we can stay there until we get our old, awesome bodies back,” he said. I beamed. I’d seen hotels on TV before, and I knew that they were lots of fun!

“Does it have a pool?” I asked eagerly.

“I dunno. I guess we’ll find out when we get there,” he replied. Then we walked to the hotel (luckily, it wasn’t too far away). On the way there, I saw a pink elephant, a strawberry marrying a peach, and a talking triangle. Then, in the lobby (I know what it’s called because, like I said earlier, I watch a lot of TV), Swindle picked up our room keys. One of them was for him, Vortex, and Onslaught, one was for Blast Off and Brawl, one was for Motormaster, and one was for me and my brothers. Drag Strip grabbed that key from Swindle, and then he and I raced to our room. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brawl and Blast Off try to solve the mystery that is human fueling.
> 
> Note that the bold text in this chapter is Onslaught interjecting his two cents into Brawl's report while the italicized text, when not in quotes, is Vortex.

Combaticon Warrior Brawl, Mission Report (as Transcribed by Onslaught and Himself): C’mon, Onslaught. You know I ain’t no good at writing. Can’t you just write this thing for me?  **No, Brawl. I will not write your report for you.** All right, fine. So, we’d all been turned into squishies, which confused me and made my head hurt when I thought too hard about it, and Swindle had gotten us a place to stay. The Stunts all went running off in one direction (buncha crazy punks, that’s what they are), Onslaught led Swindle and Vortex in the other direction, and Blast Off led me up some stairs to the second floor, where our room was. We unlocked it and went inside, and then the squishy body that I had gotten stuck inside made a noise that sounded like an engine. At first, it confused me, but then I felt a pain I’d felt before, and I figured out that I needed fuel. 

“Blast Off, I’m hungry. We gotta get some fuel,” I said. Blast Off sighed.

“And therein lies the problem. I know virtually nothing about the fueling methods of humans. I am reasonably familiar with their major cultural works, but I never felt inclined to learn about their abhorrent biological needs,” he replied. 

“I was afraid you’d say that. The only thing I know about squishies is that they’re scared of us and go squish when we step on them, so I’m just as stuck as you are. I never thought I’d say this, but I wish Swindle was here. He’s the only one of us who has a clue about how to act.” Blast Off made one of his prissy sniffing noises.

“I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent individual. If Motormaster’s pack of degenerates can understand anything about the culture of humanity, surely I can work out something as simple as acquiring fuel with relative ease. Swindle did say that humans fuel using a substance called “pizza”, did he not?” 

“Yeah. Why?” 

“Because, unless I am mistaken, I have found the contact information for a vendor that sells that particular fuel,” Blast Off replied. Then he started picking things up and looking around, which confused me. 

“Why don’t you just use your comm system to call them?” Blast Off gave me his “you’re a moron” look. I hate that look! 

“Because our human forms do not have internalized communication links. If we wish to contact anyone who is not in our immediate vicinity, we must uncover the device that humans use to communicate with each other over longer distances.” 

“Maybe they use that big screen. It looks kinda like the big communications computers we use for communicating between planets,” I suggested. 

“Perhaps. But if so, how do we operate it? It doesn’t have any obvious controls.” After some more searching, I found a long plastic thing with rubber buttons on it and held it up.

“Maybe this controls it?” Blast Off sighed wearily .

“We are both imbeciles.” I frowned. I thought that my ideas had been pretty good so far.

“What’d I say?” I asked. I know I’m dumb, but that don’t mean that EVERY idea I have is stupid! _Debatable!_ Hey, this ain’t your report! **Brawl is right, Vortex. Unless you wish to transcribe his report for him, you should not be writing on this report, which, I shouldn’t need to remind you, is going straight to Communications Officer Soundwave. He will not tolerate such unprofessionalism, and neither will I.**

“Brawl, that is a remote control, which means that the screen is a television set; a device that cannot be used for two-way communications. The Stunticons have a television in their quarter which looks quite similar to this one, and we have both seen it, so I at least should have recognized it,” Blast Off replied. After we searched some more, Blast Off managed to find the communications device (Swindle tells me it’s called a “telephone”) and he figured out how to use it to order the fuel. Then I turned on the TV to kill some time. Thirty minutes of some dumb squishy movie later, there was a knock at the door, and Blast Off answered it. A squishy in a funny helmet was standing on the other side. 

“I got your pizza,” he said. 

“Thank you,” Blast Off replied as he took the box and moved to close the door. 

“Wait! Aren’t you gonna pay me?” Blast Off’s face went white, and he walked over to me. 

“Brawl, Swindle is the only one of us with access to human currency. We don’t have the means to pay him, and refusing to do so would attract attention that we cannot afford in these disgusting forms. What should we do?” he whispered. 

“I dunno,” I said, afraid that I was going to lose that really good-smelling fuel but completely clueless as to a way to fix the problem. Coming up with ideas ain’t my job, remember?

“Never mind. I have an idea,” Blast Off replied. With that, he took a funny metal band off of his wrist and then walked back over to the squishy who’d brought the fuel. 

“Look, man, I’m not gonna give you the pizza if you don’t pay for it,” the squishy said.

“My….cohort and I are rather low on funds at the moment. Would you take this as payment instead?” The squishy’s eyes widened, and he grinned. 

“Sure!” he said. Blast Off handed him the band, and he handed Blast Off the fuel box and left. Blast Off opened the box, which held a solid circle-shaped thing inside it. 

“How do we drink it?” I asked. 

“I don’t think we do. Humans consume both solid and liquid fuels, and they use a process known as “chewing'' to take in the solid forms. From what I understand, it requires repeatedly biting on the fuel in order to break it into smaller pieces,” Blast Off replied. I groaned. Why did human fuel have to be so confusing? Blast Off pulled on the circle, and a triangle-shaped piece ripped off of it. Then he bit the triangle, did the “chewing” thing, and swallowed the part he had bit off. 

“Goodness gracious!” Blast Off exclaimed. That’s as close as he ever gets to cussing, so I knew that something about it had surprised or hurt him.

“What?” When he didn’t explain, I pulled off a triangle too and bit into it. It had so many flavors! I swallowed the piece that I’d bitten off without chewing it. That hurt, and I swore in pain and surprise. 

“I had no idea it was possible for fuel to contain such a variety of textures and flavors,” Blast Off said. 

“I know. It’s great!” I replied. I guess our forms must’ve been pretty low on fuel, because thirty minutes later, we’d eaten the entire fuel circle. And it was delicious! True, we both almost choked seven or eight times, but it was worth it. Hey, boss, am I doin’ okay?  **Yes, which is more than I can say for certain other members of this team. Good work, soldier.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breakdown may not stick out as much anymore, but that doesn't make him any less nervous.

Stunticon Scout Breakdown, Mission Report (as transcribed by Dead End): Stop staring at me while I’m making my report, Drag Strip! You know I hate being stared at! Wait, don’t write that down! Soundwave will be mad if my report isn’t professional! Where was I? Oh, yeah. After we made it to our hotel room, Drag Strip immediately got into a fight with Wildrider over who had won their race to it. I put my hands over my audio receptors, which humans call ears, and started humming to try to block out the noise. I hate it when they fight! Dead End’s braver than me, so he just ignored them and started examining his new body in a mirror. A few minutes later, Wildrider and Drag Strip stopped fighting and turned on the TV, and I walked over to Dead End, who seemed even gloomier than usual. 

“I’m s-s-sorry that you lost your old body. I know you were really proud of it,” I said. Dead End gave a long, sad-sounding sigh. 

“I appreciate the sentiment, but you are not at fault, Breakdown. The Universe wants me to suffer, so it was inevitable that I would eventually lose my handsome frame.” 

“If it makes you feel any b-b-better, I think you’re still handsome-for a flesh creature, at least,” I said, and I meant it. Dead End was the best-looking of us even as a human. 

“Breakdown, I am hideous. There is no point in pretending otherwise,” Dead End replied. 

“Shut up, End! We’re trying to watch the Daytona 500, and I can’t focus with you moping over there!” Drag Strip yelled. 

“Given our current circumstances, I think that “moping”, as you so crudely put it, is an entirely appropriate response. We are trapped in extremely fragile bodies that are susceptible to any number of weapons and diseases, and we have lost all of our strength and speed. We will undoubtedly soon perish in these forms, and no one will mourn us,” Dead End replied. I whimpered. I’d been so excited about the fact that I wasn’t going to be stared at that I had totally forgotten how easy it would be for the flesh creatures, the Autobots, or the other Decepticons to kill us now that we were human. 

“Well, if we  **are** doomed to die, I wanna cross watching the Daytona 500 off my bucket list  **before** we croak. So shut it!” Drag Strip said. 

“Me, too! Go, M & M car!” Wildrider exclaimed. Dead End shook his head. 

“Their indifference to our impending demise is something I will never understand.” With that, he walked away from the mirror and sat down on the bed that Wildrider and Drag Strip weren’t sitting on. I covered up the mirror with a towel. My reflection stares at me, and it’s probably planning to do something horrible to me someday, so I don’t like mirrors. After I had ensured that my reflection couldn’t reveal the fact that I wasn't actually a human to the other flesh creatures, I sat down next to Dead End and wondered whether or not it was possible that the hotel owners were using the television to spy on us. 

“C’mon, Target car! I’m rooting for you, so you have to win!” Drag Strip exclaimed. 

“I never thought I’d hear you rooting for someone else,” Dead End said flatly. 

“Well, I was gonna enter the race myself, but when we found out that we had a battle on the same day, Motormaster forced me to cancel my plans. If I can’t cream everybody there, then I can at least root for the car who will. The Target car is the next best choice.” Five minutes later, Wildrider grabbed the remote out of Drag Strip’s hands and started flipping through channels.

“HEY! I was still watching that! Change it back!” 

“Not gonna! There aren’t any accidents happening, and the M&M car isn’t shooting out M & Ms anymore! I’m bored, and I wanna watch Little House on the Prairie now!” Wildrider said petulantly. (Dead End taught me that word. He’s really smart.) 

“No! I’m finishing the race! I have to see my car win!” Drag Strip grabbed onto the remote and tried to pull it out of Wildrider’s hands, but Wildrider held onto it tightly. Then they got into a tug-of-war over it, which ended when Wildrider whacked Drag Strip in the eye with the remote. 

“OW! You know what? I don’t need you losers! I’ll go watch the race somewhere else!” Drag Strip exclaimed. Then he stormed out of the room, and Wildrider flipped through channels until he found the one that plays all the “Little House on the Prairie” reruns. 

“Hi, Laura!” he exclaimed. Dead End rolled his eyes. 

“S-s-should we go after Drag Strip? If he’s not careful, he might attract attention to us!” I asked Dead End.

“What’s the point? No matter what we do, we will eventually be discovered by the flesh creatures,” Dead End replied. 

“B-b-but Motormaster will get angry at us if he attracts attention.” 

“If you wish to go after him, be my guest. I am far too busy pondering the futility of our lives to bother chasing him down,” Dead End replied.

“Are you insane? I c-c-can’t go out there on my own!” I exclaimed. I’m not good enough to do things on my own, and besides, what if someone figured out that I was really a robot and stared at me?

“Then don’t go after him. Trying to influence his behavior would likely be pointless anyway. Drag Strip rarely listens to advice,” Dead End said. I didn’t like that idea, but I just couldn’t go out on my own, so I stayed put and hoped that Drag Strip wasn’t going to get us all captured. Ten minutes later, Drag Strip returned, much to my relief. 

“Winning’s no fun if I can’t rub it into someone’s face,” he said. (That’s code for “I got lonely” in Drag Strip-ese.) 

“D-d-did anyone notice you?” 

“I wish they had, but no. Apparently, they don’t know talent when they see it.” I sighed in relief. It was so nice to be anonymous. Luckily, before Drag Strip and Wildrider could get into another fight over the remote, there was a knock at the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vortex+ anything= trouble. 
> 
> Again, the bold text is Onslaught, who would really rather not mention the unexpected weakness that becoming human caused him to fall prey to.

Combaticon Interrogator Vortex, Mission Report: Just to be clear, I think that this is a big waste of my time, and I’m only doing it because Onslaught magnetized me to a chair and is refusing to let me go until I write a, quote, “professional report”. When Onslaught, Stumpy- **That is NOT professional, Vortex!** Oh, come on! Wildrider can write about talking triangles and flying cows, but I can’t call Swindle “Stumpy”? **Wildrider is extremely young, has a malfunctioning CPU, and is not under my command. You have none of those excuses.** Whatever. Anyway, when Onslaught, Swindle, and I made it to our room, Onslaught immediately claimed one of the recharging centers and then assigned Swindle and me to the other one. 

“I’d rather recharge on the floor,” I said. I shared a recharging center with Swindle until we joined the Decepticons, and I was not about to do it again. He kicks really hard when he’s in recharge. 

“If that is what you prefer, then you may do so,” Onslaught replied. Then he started talking to Swindle about financial matters. This was incredibly boring, so I left the room and went to what Swindle called the “lobby”. Once there, I sat down, pulled out my knife, and started playing with it. After a few minutes, one of the squishies yelled, 

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” in a really loud voice, surprising me and causing me to slice my hand open. Let me tell you, that hurt like- **Language! This is a professional report!** Seriously? **I am quite serious.** Fine. it hurt like the dickens, and it caused that red sticky fluid that had come out of my olfactory sensor earlier to start flowing out of my hands. Because of the pain, I started yelling, and then this female squishy ran over to me and started wrapping some funky white stuff around my hand. 

“What on Earth were you thinking? You could’ve gotten yourself killed!” she demanded angrily. In fact, she sounded a lot like Onslaught does when he’s mad, only, you know, female. In speaking of Onsy- **How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that? This is a** -professional report. Yeah, yeah, I know. Fine! So, in speaking of Onslaught, he burst into the lobby a couple of seconds later (I guess he heard me yelling).

“What is going on here?” he demanded. Then he looked at the female squishy, and this really weird look came over his face. The female squishy, for her part, kept wrapping up my hand in that weird stuff. 

“What’s going on here is that your idiotic friend here sliced his hand open with a knife. I’m trying to quell the bleeding,” she said. Onslaught scowled at me. 

“It wasn’t my fault. If I hadn’t been distracted by someone yelling at me, it wouldn’t have happened.” I said. 

“If you hadn’t been playing with a knife, it wouldn’t have mattered if you’d been distracted,” the female replied sternly. Seriously, it was freaky! One Onslaught is bad enough, and now there were two of them! She finished wrapping up my hand, and then Onslaught grabbed it and examined the wound and the strange wrappings the female squishy had put on it. After a few seconds, he looked up at her and actually looked impressed! Onslaught’s impressed looks are few and far between, and now he was giving one to a squishy! What was the deal? 

“You do efficient work. My subordinate inflicted a very serious wound on himself, and your quick actions prevented the situation from becoming dangerous. I’m impressed,” he said. 

“I used to be a medic in the United States Army. I’m used to having to respond quickly to injuries. That being said, you might want to get your friend to a hospital, Mr…..” the female squishy replied.

“Grant. Grant Dell,” Onslaught said. 

“Well, it’s good to meet you, Mr. Dell. I’m Doctor Kathryn Miller.” She extended her hand, and Onslaught actually shook it! Something was definitely wrong here, and I was going to find out what. **Vortex, what happened next is completely irrelevant to the mission. Leave it out.** Leave something out of a professional report? Why, a good soldier like me would never! 

“Likewise, ma’am. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to follow your advice and get my subordinate more medical attention,” Onslaught said. With that, he pulled me out of the chair I’d been sitting in (by my non-wounded hand) and started dragging me back to our room. 

“Okay, Onslaught, what gives?” I demanded. 

“I was...merely keeping up appearances, Vortex. It would have looked odd had I refused to thank her for her help,” Onslaught replied. Onslaught, for the uninitiated, is a terrible liar. There’s a reason he wears a faceplate and visor all the time, and it’s not because it’s fashionable. 

“Right. Which is why you had a dopey grin on your faceplates the entire time,” I said. Onslaught glared at me. 

“What are you implying, soldier?” I smirked. 

“Well, boss, the last time one of us acted like you just did, it was when Brawl decided that he fancied that cute little female minibot in Tetrahex. You know, the one I eventually eviscerated? If I didn’t know better, I’d think that you had a crush on a squishy!” Onslaught’s faceplates promptly went a strange shade of red. 

“That’s preposterous!” He was so clearly lying that I burst out laughing. My strict, passionless older brother had a crush on a pathetic squishy! This was great! Just wait until Stumpy-excuse me, Swindle-heard about this! As soon as I stopped laughing, I smiled innocently at Onslaught. 

“Whatever you say, boss. Whatever you say.” Upon our return to our room, Onslaught immediately ordered Swindle to find a way to distribute human credits to Brawl, Blast Off, and the Stunticons. He said it was because he wanted to ensure that they were able to pay for things and not attract unnecessary attention, but I’m pretty sure it was really because he wanted to get Swindle out of the room so that I couldn’t tell him about our boss going all goo-goo optics over an inferior life form. Once Swindle had left the room, I grinned up at Onslaught, who frowned. 

“You will not tell anyone about this inexplicable lapse in my judgement, understand?” he ordered. 

“Are you suggesting that I put my unit in danger by not telling them about a potential weakness in their commander? Perish the thought!” I exclaimed. Onslaught scowled at me. 

“They will not be put in any danger! I have this ridiculous emotion completely under control, so there is no need to tell them about it,” Onslaught said. I grinned wider. 

“I’d hardly call acting like a love-struck idiot keeping an emotion under control, sir,” I said. 

“I am NOT in love with her!” Onslaught exclaimed, way too emotionally to be telling the truth. I giggled. 

“Onslaught and a squishy, sittin’ in a tree-”

“Finish that and I’ll lock you in this room’s closet for an hour. Do you understand?” he barked. I decided it would be smart to shut up….at least until Onslaught couldn’t hear me. 

“Yes, sir.” Now having nothing better to do, I started playing with my knife again….only for Onslaught to grab it out of my hands. 

“Hey! What was that for?” I demanded.

“Playing with knives is dangerous! You are a professional soldier! You should know this….especially after what just happened to you,” Onslaught replied. 

“But I’m bored,” I complained. 

“You are quite intelligent, Vortex. Surely you can come up with a method of entertaining yourself that does not pose a risk to your body,” Onslaught replied. With that, he walked into the smaller room that was off of the main one with the recharging centers and slammed the door, and I tried to come up with something to do that wouldn’t prompt Onslaught to start yelling at me again. Eventually, I decided to just turn on the TV, and then wasted an entire hour of my life watching ads and some stupid squishy sport. I must’ve been REALLY bored to consider THAT entertaining, let me tell you. Eventually, Onslaught came back into the main room, and then someone pounded on the door. Onslaught opened it to find a very angry-looking Brawl, who seemed to be dragging Blast Off by his “tie”. The “skin” around Blast Off’s “eye” was noticeably discolored and puffy, and both his “nose” and “mouth” were dripping that sticky red fluid. 

“THIS IDIOT GAVE AWAY THOUSANDS OF HUMAN CREDITS FOR FUEL THAT AIN’T WORTH THIRTY!” he bellowed. 

“Louder, Brawl. There might be some squishies on the next continent who didn’t hear you,” I said. 

“Vortex, shut up. Brawl, release Blast Off at once,” Onslaught barked. Brawl immediately obeyed. 

“There was no need to be so rough with me,” Blast Off sniffed. 

“YOU GAVE AWAY FIFTEEN THOUSAND CREDITS! IF THAT AIN’T WORTH BEATING YOU UP OVER, I DUNNO WHAT IS!” One of these days, he’s going to burn out all of our audio receptors, I swear. 

“Brawl, be quiet! Blast Off, explain this now!” Onslaught barked. Blast Off sighed melodramatically. 

“Brawl and I realized our human forms required fuel, and so I ordered a fuel known as a “pizza”. Upon its arrival, we realized that we were expected to pay for it, but we had no human currency. Thus, I offered the flesh creature who delivered it to us a metal band that was around my wrist as a substitute, which he accepted. Brawl and I consumed the fuel, and, shortly thereafter, Swindle arrived with some actual human currency. When he saw the box in which the “pizza” came, he asked how we had acquired it without the proper human currency, and I explained the situation. Swindle was most displeased. You see, it seems that the metal band was in fact a timekeeping device known as a “Rolex watch”, and that it was worth several thousand human “dollars”, while the fuel was only worth around twenty. In short, I had made a terribly uneven exchange...and lost us several thousand “dollars” in the process. This revelation predictably provoked Brawl to fury, and, upon Swindle leaving our room to go talk to the Stunticons, he attacked me and then dragged me down here to see you. I apologize profusely for my mistake, but I maintain that it was just that..a mistake. It was not deliberate stupidity or sabotage on my part,” Blast Off explained. I cracked up laughing. 

“And I thought Brawl was an idiot!” I exclaimed. Blast Off sniffed huffily. 

“Vortex, shut up. Blast Off, what were you thinking? Using something in an exchange when you don’t know its worth is the height of recklessness! I would expect such foolishness from Brawl or Vortex, but you? Why didn’t you wait until you had actual human currency before ordering fuel?” Onslaught barked. I smirked. It’s always fun to watch Onslaught get mad at mechs who aren’t me. 

“I….I….Onslaught, this is an extremely stressful situation!” Blast Off protested. 

“That is no excuse. You are a professional soldier, and you should have known better,” Onslaught replied.

“Yes, sir,” Blast Off replied in a very small voice. 

“As for you, Brawl, do not attack Blast Off again. We need every member of this unit in optimal condition,” Onslaught said, and I just couldn’t resist. 

“And that includes not falling in love with female squishies, right, sir?” I said. Onslaught flushed, Blast Off looked appalled, and Brawl looked puzzled. 

“What’s he talkin’ about, boss?” Brawl asked, and I sat back to enjoy the show. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story of how Drag Strip was so awesome that he ended up having to go to the hospital. 
> 
> Note that the bold text is Dead End commenting on his teammate's exaggerated sense of self-importance.

Stunticon Warrior Drag Strip, Mission Report (As Transcribed by Dead End): It doesn’t matter what Wildrider says. I totally beat him back to our quarters today! Wait, that’s not what the mission report is about? But my victories are really important! Wait… we’re supposed to be writing about when we got turned into flesh creatures? Why didn’t you say so before?  **I did tell you. Three times.** No, you didn’t!  **Whatever makes you happy, I suppose. It will not matter in the end, when we all perish in a cosmic funeral pyre.** Aww, shut it, End! I don’t need that doom-and-gloom stuff in my awesome mission report! So anyway, after I came back to the room that I was generously letting my brothers share, there was a knock at the door. Dead End opened it, and Swindle was on the other side. A big grin spread across his face, which made me suspicious. The last time I trusted that smile, it ended in a beating from Motormaster (who, by the way, is totally jealous of my superiority).  **I would not say that if I were you, brother dear. Motormaster will be quite angry if he finds out that you made such a claim.** I said shut it, End! He can’t read, so how’s he gonna find out?  Y **ou vastly underestimate Motormaster’s ability to find out about us doing things that make him unhappy.** No, I don’t!

“What do you want, “Jacob”?” Dead End asked. 

“Who’s Jacob?” Wildrider asked. (He’s such a moron that I have trouble believing we’re related. After all, _I’m_ a genius.) 

“Don’t you remember, scrap-for-CPUs? Jacob is his flesh creature name,” I said. 

“B-b-be quiet! S-s-someone might hear you!” Breakdown whimpered. He’s such a wuss that it’s embarrassing. 

“Stop bein’ such a wimp, Breakdown,” I sneered.

“Brandon’s right, Darryl. We don’t want any humans overhearing us and figuring out that we’re not what they think we are. That would end badly for us….and worse, it would be bad for my bank account. I’ll lose money if the humans find out that Jacob Dell is really an alien robot,” Swindle said. He walked inside and shut the door behind him. 

“S-s-see?” Breakdown replied. I scowled at him, annoyed that he thought that I was wrong. I’m always right, and if I’m not, it’s Wildrider’s fault. 

“Since I doubt that you came here solely to reiterate the importance of us maintaining our covers, I again ask: What do you want?” Dead End said. Swindle’s smile widened. 

“Onslaught ordered me to find everyone and make sure that we all had human currency, so that we wouldn’t need me to handle every transaction. I’ve already given money to Blast Off, Brawl, and Motormaster, so now I just have to give you some cash and we’ll be good,” Swindle explained. With that, he handed some flesh creature money to Dead End. 

“Why didn’t you give it to me?” I asked him. 

“Because if I gave it to you, you’d spend it all within a day. If I have to give up my money to anyone, I’d rather give it to someone I know can handle it properly,” Swindle replied. I could totally have handled that money properly! Swindle didn’t know what he was talking about. 

“I would not spend it all within a day!” I said. 

“You would too,” Wildrider said (that traitor!). 

“Would not!”

“Would too!” 

“Would not!” 

“Would too!” 

“Would not!” 

“Would too!” 

“I rest my case. Good luck keeping those two out of your money supply, Dead End, ” Swindle said. Then he left the room before I could convince him that I could totally handle the money. 

“Would not,” I said, just to be sure that I at least won my argument with Wildrider. I always win my arguments with him, because I’m awesome.  **No, you always win because Wildrider has the attention span of a fruit fly.** And I don’t, so therefore, I’m more awesome than he is.  **I don’t know why I bother attempting to convince you of reality. It never works.** Hey, I’m totally aware of reality! You just don’t want to admit that reality revolves around me! Anyway, after Swindle left, I decided that I was going to get the TV remote out of Wildrider’s hands, but before I could, there was another knock on the door. This one was a lot louder than Swindle's had been. Dead End opened the door again, and this time Motormaster was on the other side, much to my annoyance. There went any hope of me getting to prove my awesomeness to my brothers. 

“All right, who has the money?” he demanded. Breakdown let out a sad little squeak, because he’s a wimp, and Dead End sighed again. 

“I do,” he replied. 

“Aww, come on, End! You aren’t really gonna give our money to him, are you? Why can't we keep it for ourselves?” I asked, because, unlike my brothers, I’m not afraid of Motormaster. In response, Motormaster shoved Dead End to the floor and stomped over to me, at which point, because I’m a genius, I decided that it would be better for everyone if I avoided punishment. 

“It was Wildrider’s idea!” I exclaimed. 

“It was?” Wildrider asked. 

“No, you stupid glitch, it wasn’t. You’re just too dumb to realize that this arrogant braggart was tryin’ to use you to get out of his punishment,” Motormaster replied. Okay, so maybe I’d bitten off more than I could chew, but can you blame me? I’d like to see anyone else do better with an angry Motormaster staring at them! 

“Aww, c’mon, boss. I was just joking,” I said. And for the record, I was NOT scared, okay? I was just being smart, because, like I said earlier, I am a genius. Then Motormaster grabbed me and knocked my head into one of the bedposts really hard. For some reason, this knocked me offline, and the next thing I knew I was inside an ambulance, with a nervous-looking Breakdown and another squishy with a faceplate standing over me. 

“What’s going on?” I asked. My voice sounded a little funny, but I’m sure it still sounded way better than everyone else’s. Breakdown, being a big wuss, let out another whimper. 

“Y-y-you’re in an ambulance. When M-M-Motormaster knocked y-y-your head into the b-b-bedpost, he also cracked your h-h-head open, and it caused a bunch of that red, sticky fluid to come out of it.. D-D-Dead End called 9-1-1, like they do in all those cop shows, so that w-w-we could get you to a m-m-medic, and he t-t-thinks you’re g-g-going to die,” he replied. I know that the idea of me dying is totally ridiculous, but at the time I couldn’t think straight, so I didn’t tell Breakdown that. Instead, I said something along the lines of, 

“What happened to me?” The other squishy in the ambulance turned to me. 

“You have a fractured skull, lost a lot of blood, and may have suffered some form of brain injury. You’re lucky your brothers called us when they did,” he replied. HA! As if they could survive without me! 

“H-h-he’s right! The c-c-cops said that you were lucky that T-T-Tom didn’t kill you,” Breakdown added. After a few seconds of wondering who Tom was (due entirely to the fact that I had recently suffered a major head injury, of course), I remembered that he was Motormaster….which brought up another question. 

“Cops?” I asked. 

“Y-y-yes. They s-s-said that they were t-t-taking him to jail for assault,” Breakdown replied. 

“I thought you called the ambulance.” 

“W-w-we did, but when D-D-Dead End told the operator that M-M-Motormaster had hit your head into a b-b-bedpost, they said that they were sending the c-c-cops, too. I d-d-don’t know why,” Breakdown replied. Before I could ask any more questions, I felt a sharp spike of pain in my head, and I blacked out again. Okay, I’m done. Now can I tell them about how I totally creamed Wildrider?  **I give up. Do whatever you like. It will not matter in the end, when we all go to that great junkyard in the sky.** Just ignore him, everybody. He wouldn’t know awesomeness if it punched him in the face. Now, about that race…..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of all the indignities surrounding becoming human, in Onslaught's humble opinion, hormones are the worst. 
> 
> The italicized text is Vortex; the bold text is Swindle.

Combaticon Commander Onslaught, Mission Report: Thus concludes the report. Onslaught out. _No fair, Onsy! You don’t get to stop writing your report just because it embarasses you!_ I have given Commander Soundwave all the necessary information about the mission already. He knows how we were turned into humans, the duration of time during which we were in organic forms, and how we were returned to our proper forms. There is no need to supply him with unnecessary information. _Oh, come on! The part you’re trying to leave out is like a quarter of your experiences! If Stumpy or Brawl or I tried to leave out that much, we’d all be on punishment duty for the next lunar cycle!_ I am your commanding officer. Cease writing on my mission report immediately. _Okay, then the next time I’m working with Commander Soundwave to gather intelligence, I’ll just tell him about your dereliction of duty, commander._ Vortex, if you don’t knock it off now I will have you thrown in the brig for insubordination! **Uh, boss? As much as I hate to agree with Tex, he has a point. If Commander Soundwave finds out that you left out part of your report, Megatron’ll have our heads, and you know it.** You….you are correct, Swindle. It would be-unprofessional to not ensure that my report is as thorough as possible. 

“What’s he talking about, boss?” Brawl asked this question at roughly 1600 hours. 

“I...well, I….” My delay proved to be costly. 

“Onslaught has a crush on a squishy!” Vortex exclaimed. I glared at him, but, as usual, this did not function effectively as a deterrent. 

“Vortex, this situation is already dire. Your puerile jokes are only exacerbating the situation,” Blast Off said. 

“I’m not joking! I was in the lobby, playing with my knife, when this squishy distracted me and made me slice my hand open. Then this female squishy ran over to me and wrapped this weird-looking white stuff around my hand to stop the “bleeding”. Then Onslaught showed up, and he smiled this dopey grin and actually gave the squishy one of his impressed looks….and then he called her ma’am and started blushing!” Vortex replied.

“What?” Blast Off demanded. He sounded appalled. 

“He’s lying! Right, boss?” Brawl asked. 

“At the very least, he is exaggerating the facts. I may have...talked... to the female human, but I assure you that it was only to keep up appearances,” I replied. Vortex snickered, and Blast Off sighed wearily. 

“I intend no offense, sir, but you are a terrible liar. If Vortex was lying, you would simply say so...which means that you do, in fact, feel some degree of attraction to a female flesh creature,” he said, sounding thoroughly disgusted. 

“EWW!” Brawl bellowed. 

“It isn’t often that Brawl and I agree that something is disgusting, but in this case, I am afraid I concur. What could possibly possess a Cybertronian to feel an attraction to a lowly organic?” Blast Off said. Vortex’s giggling got louder. 

“Perhaps the fact that we are currently in human forms, which therefore possess human hormones?” I replied, wanting to maintain as much control of the situation as was realistically possible. I could not, after all, have my team thinking of their commander as weak or swayed by passions. 

“Then why are you the only one to have been affected by them?” Blast Off asked, as Vortex fell out of the chair he had been sitting in, still laughing. 

“Perhaps because you and Brawl have not yet encountered a female human in your current forms,” I said. 

“What about Vortex? He met this female as well, and he seems immune to her supposed charms.” 

“Vortex is a statistical anomaly, as well as a sadistic glitch. I would have been more surprised if he had been attracted to her.” 

“That may be true, but the fact remains that you are currently the only one of us to be affected in this manner. In light of this, I am relieving you of command until our current condition is reversed,” Blast Off said firmly. 

“ _What?_ ” I exclaimed. 

“As your second-in-command, it is my duty to take control of the unit if you are incapacitated in some way, and currently, you clearly are. You always insist upon the importance of keeping the unit in order, and that is what I am doing. You are relieved of command,” Blast Off replied. I looked at Brawl, who shrugged. 

“Sorry, boss, but Blast Off’s right. I don’t think you’d be able to lead us right now,” he said. Vortex’s laughter got even louder.

“Maybe we should get turned into squishies more often! This is the most fun I’ve had all stellar cycle!” he exclaimed. 

“You want to be in command, Blast Off? Very well; you have my full support. Good luck keeping Brawl, Swindle, and this irritating glitch in line,” I said. With that, I left the room and shut the door firmly behind me, then went to what Swindle had called the lobby, where I spent some time. _No fair! That’s a total cop-out, Ons!_ It is not a cop-out, Vortex. What I did with that time is irrelevant to the mission. And I thought I told you NOT to call me that! **Tex has a point, boss.** FINE! I don’t know why the two of you insist on humiliating your superior officer, but I will play your game if you insist-if only so that you can no longer claim that I am being unreasonable in my requirements for your reports. In the lobby, I happened to encounter the female human by the name of Dr. Miller.

“Oh. Hello again, Mr. Dell. Is your idiotic friend all right?” 

“He is my brother, actually, but yes, he is fine,” I replied, trying to ignore the raging hormones of my human form. 

“Your brother, huh? I guess that explains why he looked so much like you. I hope his stupidity isn’t genetic,” she said. I wasn’t entirely sure what “genetic” meant, but from the context, I could guess at it. 

“Thankfully not. I have another brother named Tony who isn’t exactly the bookish type, but thankfully he’s nothing like Patrick,” I replied. Dr. Miller laughed, and I had to clamp down even harder on my human form’s disgusting hormones.

“I get it. There’s one in every family tree, I suppose. I’ve got this one cousin who likes to practice his fencing in my grandma’s tiny dining room-and that’s the least annoying thing about him,” she said. As much as I hate to admit this, I actually started laughing, too. It was...nice to talk to someone who wasn’t mocking or criticizing me, especially after what my team had just put me through. 

“If it makes you feel any better, on one mission, Patrick discovered an enemy spy and decided to attempt to scare him off with an empty gun and some hideous, bright pink sheet of material.” 

“I was wondering if you were in the military. What field?” I have never been more relieved that I decided to study the human military structure than I was at that exact moment. 

“Army, like you. I’m a Sergeant,” I replied, using the closest equivalent to my actual rank. 

“So, have you completed your tours, or are you and your team on leave?” 

“On leave.” 

“How’d that idiot brother of yours ever make it into the army?” 

“Normally, I doubt he would have….but he is an excellent pilot.” 

“I see. So, what brings you back here?” Dr. Miller asked. 

“Fatigue. My team can be...quite trying,” I replied. 

“I’d imagine. You wanna take a coffee break with me?” I wasn’t sure what coffee was, but it seemed rude to turn her down, and even if I hadn’t been worried about blowing my cover, I would have accepted her offer, because, embarrassingly enough, I had largely lost my battle with my human body’s hormones. What followed was a thoroughly private, though shockingly enjoyable, conversation with Dr. Miller. If more details are requested by High Command, I will provide them. Onslaught out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Motormaster does not like writing reports, but he liked being in jail even less. 
> 
> The bold text is Dead End; italicized text is Wildrider; underlined text is Soundwave.

Stunticon Leader Motormaster, Mission Report (as transcribed by Dead End): We got turned into squishes by the Constructicons’ stupid machine. Then, we got turned back into robots because of some sciency stuff, and now we can wreck Autobots and have our demolition derbies again. Motormaster out.

Report: Rejected. Reasoning: Insufficient information provided.

Whaddaya mean, Commander Soundwave? I told ya everything ya need to know!

This assumption: incorrect. Provide more information about experiences, or face punishment. 

We got turned into squishes by the Constructicons’ stupid machine. I beat up my subordinates because they’re worthless idiots. Onslaught got a crush on a female squishy. That’s gross.

_Yeah! Girls have cooties!_

Wildrider, if you don’t get outta here right now, I’m gonna kill you! Anyway, he was totally useless, which is why I’m a better leader than him. Then, we got turned back into robots because of some sciency stuff, and now we can wreck Autobots and have our demolition derbies again. Motormaster out.

Report: Rejected. Reasoning: Amount of information provided is still insufficient. 

Aww, come ON! Why can’t you just read the reports of my stupid subordinates if you wanna know the details so bad?

Tone: Not appreciated. Elaborate on experiences, or else.

You can shove your stupid orders up your tailpipe, Soundwave! I’m not writing anything more, and you can’t make me!

 **Actually, sir, as the Communications Officer, he _can_ ** **make you, and, although I know you will not listen, I feel obligated to point out that disobeying him is probably unwise, and may very well lead to all of us facing our undoubtedly painful demise.**

Shut up, you useless, annoying mope! What’s the worst he can do? Play bad music at me?

Motormaster, this is Lord Megatron. Normally, disobeying and then insulting a superior officer like Soundwave is tantamount to treason, and punishable by execution. Because of your youth, and your position as a member of a combiner team, you will be spared death, but I am sending you to the brig for the foreseeable future-after, that is, you finish your report. I also expect you to write a note of apology to Soundwave. Unlike some of my other warriors, he and his cassettes never fail me.

Uh….yes, sir, Lord Megatron sir. Because Drag Strip is a weakling and had to be taken to a medic just because I slammed his head into a bedpost, I got arrested and taken to squishy jail. I spent most of the ride to the stupid squishy jail cussing out the stupid squishy police. 

“Shut up, Eastwood,” one of them said. Unlike Breakdown, I wasn’t afraid of squishies, so I just cussed at him again, but louder. They didn’t react again, though, so eventually I stopped yelling and just glared at them. 

“Quite a piece of work we have here, huh, Perez?” the one who had told me to shut up asked the other one. I think that it was a female squishy.

“Sí, Foster. Bad enough to crack someone’s skull open, but to do it to your own brother? That’s something else,” the other replied. He was male. 

“No kidding. I’ve been on the force for years, and I can count on two hands the number of assaults I’ve seen that were that brutal. The blonde kid was lucky to be alive...and the worst part is that the other three seemed to think that what this creep had done was acceptable. If they’re really brothers, they’ve probably lived their entire lives believing that being abused and assaulted by him is normal,” the first one said. 

“It ain’t my fault that they’re too weak to take the punishment they deserve,” I replied, annoyed that they seemed to think I’d done something wrong. Didn’t they know that as the leader of the Stunticons, I had the right to do whatever I wanted to my team? Much to my annoyance, they just ignored me. A couple minutes later, they pulled me out of the car and into the police station, where they “booked” me. (This didn’t involve a book in any way that I could see, because squishies are stupid.) 

“The prints match the name you gave, Officer Foster. Thomas Eastwood, age 24, a high school dropout and truck driver; previously arrested at age 22 for assault of his brother, Brandon Eastwood, then age 19. The charges were dropped at the request of the victim,” a third squishy, this one also male, said. It was at this point that I realized that Swindle had somehow managed to get our human identities into the squishies’ legal records, and I made a mental note to beat him up for giving my human identity an arrest record. After some more stuff I didn’t really understand, one of the squishy police officers locked me in a cell and left. Then I sat around for a really long time, cussing at or threatening anyone who came by to let them know that I was angry. No one reacted, though, which was annoying. Eventually, I got tired of that and fell into recharge for a while. I was woken up by another one of the squishy police officers, who frowned. 

“You got lucky, Eastwood. For some reason, your brothers have decided to pay your bail, so you’re free to go until your trial,” he said. With that, he let me out of the cell and led me to Dead End and Wildrider. 

“Hiya, boss!” Wildrider exclaimed. 

“It’s about time you morons showed up,” I replied. 

“Are you two _sure_ that you want to pay his bail?” the female squishy who had arrested me asked them. I glared at her.

“Yes, Officer. We are quite sure. After all, we need him. As...difficult...as he can be, we could not survive without him,” Dead End replied.

“Those poor kids. He’s got them brainwashed,” the female squishy muttered. I glared at her again. What I did to my team was none of her business, and besides, if I really had them brainwashed, they wouldn’t be stupid and useless and annoying. Then we left the police station and started back to the hotel. On the way there, I stopped, led my two idiot teammates into an alley, and then grabbed Dead End by the neck.

“What’d you call 9-1-1 for? You think you’re so smart-didn’t you realize I might get into trouble?” I yelled. 

“If I had not done so, Drag Strip would have died. Granted, the likelihood of his dying in the hospital is reasonably high, as I have no confidence in the abilities of human medics, but I did not want to watch as his life force was extinguished. What's more, watching him die would have traumatized Wildrider and Breakdown, thereby diminishing our chances of surviving long enough to be returned to our proper forms to a percentage even lower than the current one,” he replied. 

“Plus, we got to see the police car sirens! That’s always fun!” Wilrider exclaimed. 

“Who cares? If he ain’t strong enough to survive on his own, then he should’ve died. I don’t need weaklings on my team!” With that, I dropped Dead End to the ground, kicked him in the side, punched Wildrider, and went back to the hotel with them, still fuming about the way that those ingrates had betrayed me. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Swindle's sick and tired of having to be the responsible one. 
> 
> Italicized text is Vortex commenting.

Combaticon Munitions Expert Swindle, Mission Report: When I finally made it back to the hotel room that I was supposed to share with Tex and Ons- _No fair! How come Stumpy can get away with this, but I can’t?_ Simple. I’m charming, good natured, and cute, and you are none of those things. I know this is a difficult concept for you to grasp, Tex, but you catch more Insecticons with energon than with robotic insecticide. Anyway, when I made it back, I was surprised to find all of my teammates BUT Onslaught in the room. Vortex was on the ground cackling, Brawl looked confused, and Blast Off, as usual, seemed both tired and disgusted. 

“All right, Vortex is happy, so either he just did something horrible, or something unpleasant happened to you, Brawl, or Onslaught. Which is it?” I asked. Blast Off sighed. 

“I have been forced to temporarily take command of the Combaticons, due to a most…..sensitive development,” Blast Off replied. 

“And the “sensitive development” is that Onslaught is in love with a squishy!” Vortex exclaimed gleefully. Then he collapsed into giggles.

“Let me get this straight. Onslaught- _our_ Onslaught, the least romantic, least passionate individual in three solar systems-has fallen for a female human?” I replied, more than a little surprised. 

“From what I can ascertain, yes,” Blast Off said, sounding more than a little revolted. Now that the initial shock was over, I shrugged. 

“Well, as long as he doesn’t sign over all my money to her, who cares? It’s a little weird, but we are humans right now. We shouldn’t be THAT surprised by the fact that our human bodies might be attracted to other humans,” I replied. With that, I left the room again and went to go find Onslaught and see just how accurate my teammates’ descriptions of his feelings were. I found him in the lobby, chatting over what appeared to be coffee with a female human, and walked over to him. 

“Hi, Grant. How are things going?” I asked. Onslaught looked absolutely mortified. 

“What are you doing here?” he demanded. 

“Do you know this man, Sergeant Dell?” the female human asked him. Onslaught blushed a bit, and I grinned. Blast Off and Vortex were right. Onslaught had it bad! 

“Um, yes, I do. Dr. Miller, this is my youngest brother, Jacob Dell. Jacob, this is Doctor Kathryn Miller,” he replied. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Jacob,” the woman said.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, too, ma’am,” I said, as I smiled my most charming smile. Then the woman turned to Onslaught. 

“Why, he’s _adorable_! How old is he?” she asked him. I frowned. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being called “adorable”, “cute”, or any variation thereof. Handsome, sure, but I am NOT cute! _Stumpy, you’re in denial. You have big optics and are smaller than 90% of the population. That makes you cute._ I’m ignoring you, Tex. Anyhow, what Onslaught did next caught me a little off guard: he actually smiled at her! 

“He’s looked about 16 for a very long time, but he’s actually 27. He’s considerably older than he looks.” 

“Is he in the military, too?” the woman asked. 

“Yes, he is. He is our munitions and supply expert, and, as you might imagine, he can get his hands on just about anything,” Onslaught replied. 

“With a face like that? I’m not surprised. Although I _am_ a little surprised that all three of your brothers are also in the military. That doesn’t happen too often,” the woman said. 

“No, I suppose it doesn’t-but then, we have never been an ordinary family. Our father died in a mining accident when Patrick was three and Jacob was only a few months old. Tony was somewhat older, but he certainly wasn’t ready to support himself. I had to drop out of school and find a job in order to support them, and, after a few years of working for long hours at low wages, I decided to join the military, because, if nothing else, it would give me a chance at being able to afford a full education later down the line. As I was an adult by that point, and their sole caretaker, my brothers spent a good deal of their childhoods on a military base. I suspect that that was what led them to join the military as well when they reached adulthood,” Onslaught replied, surprising me again. While he had obviously fudged or left out many of the details to maintain our cover (for example, I was, in human terms, twelve years old when Onslaught joined a military unit that was eventually absorbed into the Decepticon movement, so there were more than a “few” years between when our creator died and when Onslaught joined the army), but, to my knowledge, Onslaught had never told anyone (outside of our team) that he’d been forced to drop out of school; he was really embarrassed by it. The fact that he had told this woman so much about his past meant that he had to be absolutely smitten with her. 

“Goodness! It sounds like you’ve had quite the interesting life, Sargeant Dell,” the woman said. Onslaught flushed. 

“I...I suppose I have, yes,” he replied. He was clearly nervous, and it was actually kind of adorable. Onslaught had spent his entire life either working nonstop or in the Decepticon Detention Center, so any sort of romantic attraction was completely new to him. He was essentially having his first crush, just about twenty stellar cycles late and in a human body. Since his romance didn’t seem to be threatening my finances, I decided to allow him to enjoy the first break I think he’s ever taken (and he says I’M obsessed with work!) and went back to my hotel room. Brawl and Blast Off had apparently returned to their room in the interim, because they weren’t there when I arrived, and Vortex was sitting on one of the beds and, unsurprisingly, playing with his knife again. I ignored him, sat down at the room’s desk, and then set about giving the Stunticons legal identities. Good thing, too, because, as I would find out later, Drag Strip and Motormaster were removed from the hotel by emergency responders less than fifteen minutes after I’d finished. After I’d finished with that, I paid Vortex’s-or rather, Patrick Dell’s-unpaid taxes (no sense in risking bringing down the FBI on us), and then contacted one of my many business partners to ensure that a business deal that I had set up wouldn’t fall through. I had just finalized the deal when Vortex poked me in the side with his knife-not enough to draw blood, but enough to get my attention (and make me yelp-that hurt!). 

“What can I do for you, Tex?” I asked. 

“I’m bored. Wanna go bug Onsy and his squishy girlfriend?” 

“Not especially. Even I’m not coldsparked enough to ruin what’s essentially the first break our older brother’s ever taken...especially since it’s keeping him out of my business deals,” I said. 

“But I’m bored!” 

“You know, Tex, sometimes I wonder which of us is the older brother.” Vortex cackled. 

“Eeeh, maturity’s overrated anyway. The fact that Onslaught’s never had a break before now is proof of that,” he replied. I was about to tell him to get lost, but then I remembered that a bored Vortex was a dangerous Vortex, and that letting him out of my sight could easily lead to us getting arrested. With this in mind, I led him into the bathroom (exactly what humans did in there, I didn’t know, but I was hoping we wouldn’t have to find out) and turned on the shower. 

“Here. If you’re so bored, you can play with this. It’s called a shower, and from what I understand, it’s kind of like our washracks. Maybe you can figure out how it works,” I said. Vortex’s eyes lit up in obvious excitement, much to my relief. I pride myself on being able to read my customers, but figuring out what will interest Vortex is a bit difficult even for me. Clearly, however, the shower fascinated him, and by the time I left the bathroom, he was already playing with the showerhead. I then returned to my work and enjoyed about an hour of uninterrupted, lucrative trade before being interrupted by a yowl from Vortex. 

“OW! Hey, Stumpy, get in here! I’m stuck in this thing!” I ran into the bathroom to see what he was making such a fuss about-and was greeted by the sight of an overflowing sink, an overflowing shower, and a sopping-wet Vortex with his arm stuck in the device the humans call a toilet. I groaned, realizing I had forgotten a very important fact about Vortex: namely, that a curious Vortex was a Vortex that was as dangerous to himself as he was to others. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breakdown isn't fooled by the apparent kindness of these doctors. They're out to get him!

Stunticon Scout Breakdown, Mission Report (as transcribed by Dead End): When we arrived at the hospital, Drag Strip was rushed into the emergency room, leaving me with one of the desk workers, who stared at me in such a way that I’m still convinced that she knew that I wasn’t really human. I whimpered and started backing away. 

“You’re related to the patient that was just brought in, correct?” she asked. 

“Y-y-yes. I’m Brandon Eastwood, and he’s my little brother. His name is Darryl,” I replied nervously. Everyone in the hospital was staring at me, waiting for me to make a mistake so that they could take us to some government facility and experiment on us. I just knew it! I whimpered again and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to be an experiment!

“Darryl Eastwood, age 19? Track and field star at Portland University?” the woman asked. 

“Yes,” I replied. I had no idea how he had a human age or a human past, but I wasn’t about to question it. That would only attract even more attention. I wasn’t going to let them make me an experiment! Determined to not stand out, I forced myself to open my eyes.

“How was he injured?” 

“Mo-Thomas, my oldest brother, smashed his head into a b-b-bedpost. The hum...I mean, the people in the ambulance say he might have a concussion, and there was a lot of blood,” I replied weakly. I don’t like blood. It’s gross and sticky and makes me feel ill. 

“Your older brother did this to him? Why?” she asked. 

“Why wouldn’t he? He always beats us up when he gets mad,” I replied. The lady shook her head sadly. 

“Never mind. Are you paying cash or credit?” she asked. 

“Cash,” I replied. (Dead End had handed the human money over to me when we decided that I was going to the hospital with Drag Strip, so I knew that I could pay.) 

“All right. Given the circumstances, that’ll be 400 dollars upfront,’ the lady replied. This wiped out all but $200 of the money Swindle had given us, but it did cover our expenses and didn’t attract attention to me, so I couldn’t complain. The lady directed me to the emergency waiting room, and, once I made it there, I sat in a chair in the corner of the room, far away from the humans in the room, and started leafing through a magazine, looking at its pictures and wishing that I knew how to read it. After what felt like forever (I really missed my internal chronometer when I didn’t have it), my name was called, and I followed a human in a lab coat into another room. Drag Strip was lying on a bed in the room. His head was bandaged, and he didn’t look very good. I whimpered. What would we do if he died? Without Drag Strip, we couldn’t form Menasor! 

“Mr. Eastwood, your brother has an open, or compound, skull fracture. Part of his skull shattered in such a way that the bone broke through his skin-that’s what caused most of the bleeding. He also seems to have a concussion. He keeps losing consciousness, he’s vomited twice, and he’s very disoriented. Clearly, he took a pretty hard blow to the head. Do you mind if I ask you how it happened?” I whimpered. I wasn’t entirely sure what a “concussion” was, but if it was making Drag Strip vomit and black out, it was probably bad. 

“N-n-no. My older brother, Mo-Thomas, got angry at him and whacked his head into a bedpost,” I replied. The human looked angry, and I winced, sure that he had figured out what I really was.

“Has this sort of thing happened before?” the human asked. 

“Yes,” I replied, not sure why he was asking. Didn’t everyone get punished by their superiors with physical force? 

“Has he done this to you?” 

“Not that specifically,” I replied. 

“But he’s physically harmed you?” I nodded. 

“In that case, he’s probably abusing you. I could try to help you leave him if you-” 

“NO!” I exclaimed. If the human wanted to separate us from Motormaster, it could only mean that he was trying to lure us into some sort of trap! If Drag Strip hadn’t been so injured, I would’ve grabbed him and left the hospital right then and there. 

“He could’ve killed your brother, Mr. Eastwood. If you stay with him, you’re quite literally risking your lives,” the human said. 

“I said no!” I exclaimed. Much to my relief, the human let the matter drop. 

“All right. I won’t bother you about it anymore, Mr. Eastwood. But if you change your mind, you know where to find me,” he said. I nodded, knowing that I wouldn’t change my mind. 

“W-w-when can I take him home with me?” I asked. The human sighed. 

“Your brother’s been badly hurt, Mr. Eastwood. At a minimum, he’ll have to be here at least two or three days, and I’d advise that we keep him here for at least two weeks to make sure that he heals properly...especially since, with this sort of injury, he’s running a serious risk for permanent brain damage,” he said. 

“Two  _ weeks _ ? We can’t stay here that long! Thomas will kill us if we don’t come back soon!” I shrieked. It was true. Motormaster would be furious if we didn’t make it back to the hotel soon, and, even if that hadn’t been a problem, there was no way I could maintain my cover for two weeks! The human frowned. 

“You do realize that you can leave and come back for your brother here once he’s healed, don’t you?” he asked. I looked at him in horror. 

“I c-c-can’t just leave him here! Somebody has to make sure nobody gets him!” 

“Mr. Eastwood, this is a hospital. I promise you, your brother will be in no danger from the staff here,” the human replied. 

“Can’t I just take him home now?” 

“Mr. Eastwood, your brother has just gone through surgery, and it’s eleven o’clock at night. If you were to leave with your brother now, he would be in a great deal of danger.” 

“He’ll be in danger if Thomas d-d-doesn’t get him back soon, too,” I said. I didn’t bring up the fact that he and the other humans knew we weren’t really human and wanted to dissect us. I couldn’t let him know that I was onto him! The human’s frown deepened. 

“I want to make it clear that this is strongly against my medical advice, but….if you insist on leaving tomorrow morning, I will let you go. Just please...for your brother’s sake, at least stay the night,” he said. I thought it over and decided that he was right. While I didn’t trust him, I trusted my own ability to get myself and Drag Strip back to the hotel in the dark, where all sorts of potential enemies might be lurking, even less. 

“Okay. I...I guess I can stay that long.” 

“Good. I’ll update you on his condition tomorrow morning before you leave. I just hope that hearing more about his condition will be enough to change your mind,” the human replied. With that, the human escorted me back into the waiting room. I tried really, really hard to stay awake (after all, if I feel asleep, they might get me), but I just couldn’t manage it. It had been such a long day, and I was exhausted, so at about 11:40, I fell asleep (that’s what humans do instead of recharging). But I meant to stay awake. I really did! i had to protect my team! 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cassettes are much scarier when you aren't the size of a space shuttle.

Combaticon Space Warrior Blast Off, Mission Report: Shortly after Brawl and I refueled a second time (human bodies are terribly energy inefficient), my dimwitted teammate became curious as to what Swindle and Vortex were doing. While I personally wanted to fall into recharge and forget about the nightmarish situation that I had found myself in, I knew that letting Brawl wander off on his own would undoubtedly end in disaster. Thus, much to my displeasure, I found myself accompanying Brawl to the room that was being shared by Onslaught, Swindle, and Vortex. Brawl pounded on the door. 

“Hey, guys! It’s us! Let us in!” he bellowed. The door was opened by an unusually harried-looking Swindle, the expression on his face making it obvious that something had gone horribly wrong. 

“Uh, I hate to tell you this, Tony, but this is kinda a bad time. Tex’s arm is stuck in the toilet, and I can’t get it out,” he said. 

“What’s a toilet?” Brawl asked loudly. 

“Uh...long story. Bye now!” Swindle replied. 

“Wait! Maybe I can help you get his arm unstuck from whatever it is!” Brawl exclaimed. Swindle seemed to ponder this for a few seconds, then smiled. 

“Good point. Come on in!” With that, Swindle let Brawl inside the room….and then slammed the door in my face, probably to avoid the scolding of his acting commander. Left with nothing in particular to do, I walked to the lobby...and came face-to-face with a most unpleasant sight. Our stern, stoic, passionless commander was talking-and holding hands!-with a flesh creature as though she was his equal! It was absolutely disgusting. 

“Would this be another of your teammates, Sargeant Dell?” the flesh creature asked. Onslaught nodded. 

‘“Indeed. Benjamin, this is Dr. Kathryn Miller. Dr. Miller, this is Benjamin St. Michael, our team’s sniper,” he said. 

“Nice to meet you, St. Michael.” 

“Likewise,” I lied. No matter how unpleasant I found the situation, I was enough of a professional to not risk blowing our cover by acting suspiciously. As I had no particular desire to watch Onslaught continue to debase himself with the flesh creature, I quickly walked away from them and decided to go for a walk outside of the building to clear my head. I had walked perhaps four blocks away from the hotel and was about to turn around when a bright pair of glowing red optics appeared in the dim light. Before I could register just how dangerous this might be, a dark shape shot out at me, knocked me down, and pinned me to the ground. A few seconds later, either Rumble or Frenzy (I can never tell them apart) also stepped out of the shadows, a huge grin on his faceplates. 

“Nice job, Ravage!” Rumble-or-Frenzy exclaimed. Ravage snarled something in his own language that I was unable to interpret, and then leapt off of me and onto a nearby dumpster. Rumble-or-Frenzy pulled me forcibly to my feet and I was forced to confront the uncomfortable reality that they were now taller-and considerably more durable- than I was. 

“W-what do you want?” I asked. 

“Earlier today, some of my teammates-they’re robots like me, but a lot bigger-went missing in this area. You’re gonna tell me if you’ve seen any of ‘em, squishy….or I’ll let Ravage eat you,” Rumble-or-Frenzy said. This put me in a bit of a bind. I, of course, knew exactly what had happened to his teammates (being one of them), but I doubted that Rumble-or-Frenzy would have believed me if I had told them so (especially since I was alone at the time). On the other hand, if I lied to them and they figured it out, it would’ve meant serious trouble for me. What happened next was not, I fully admit, one of my finest moments. 

“P-please, I don’t-I don’t,” I stammered. In response, Rumble-or-Frenzy tightened his grip on me, and I cried out in pain. 

“Wrong answer, squishy. Now tell me what I wanna know, or it’ll get a lot worse for ya,” he said, voice low. I had always thought that Rumble-or-Frenzy’s threats were rather laughable. At that moment, they didn’t seem nearly so amusing. 

“Please, please, let me go! I swear, I can’t help you! Please!” In response, Rumble-or-Frenzy pulled out his gun and put the barrel to my head. I had seen what our lasers could do to human bodies. I knew that if he pulled the trigger, I would die as a miserable flesh creature. 

“I said TELL ME!” he yelled. Ravage growled something, but Rumble-or-Frenzy ignored it. Had I still been capable of thinking rationally, I probably would have lied at this point just to get out of the situation, but, as it was, I was so consumed with (perfectly reasonable) fear that I simply froze, certain that I was going to be killed by a member of my own faction. 

“Hound, look! It’s Rumble and Ravage! They must be responsible for the energy signatures you were picking up!” The voice belonged to one of the Autobots’ human pets, who had just stumbled onto the scene alongside his green companion. 

“Butt out, Autobot. This don’t concern you,” Rumble-or-Frenzy said.

“You’re putting an innocent himan’s life in danger. That means it definitely concerns me,” the Autobot scout replied. It actually took a few seconds for me to realize that he was talking about me, and when I finally did, I wanted to offline in order to escape the mortification.. Rumble-or-Frenzy seemed perfectly ready to attack the Autobot, but before he could actually do it, Ravage growled something at him. 

“C’mon, Ravage! I could totally take that loser!” he exclaimed. In response, Ravage snarled at him, and he scowled before tossing me to the side. 

“You got lucky this time, squishy,” he spat. Then he and Ravage took off into the air and vanished from view. The Autobots’ human pet knelt and extended his hand to me. 

“Are you all right?” he asked. I wanted to scream at him that I was very much not all right. I was trapped in a body that was so weak that I couldn’t even defend myself and I had almost been killed by one of my own allies before having to be saved by the enemy! Instead, in the interest of preserving at least a little dignity for myself, I simply accepted his hand and let him help me back to my feet. 

“I do not believe that I took any permanent damage,” I said stiffly. 

“You sure? I’m sure those Decepticons gave you a pretty bad scare,” the Autobot scout asked. It was utterly unnerving to have the Autobot towering over me, and I suddenly understood why the flesh creatures react so strongly to our very presence. 

“Quite sure. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a friend to get back to. If I fail to return to him soon, he’s certain to get into trouble,” I replied. 

“You need an escort?” The Autobot asked. 

“No. Saving my life was enough of a favor, I believe.” 

“Well, if you’re sure...take care of yourself,” the Autobot said. 

“Thank you,” I replied. (As much as I despise Autobots, I make a point of thanking those individuals who save my life, as it encourages them to do it more than once.) With that, I left the Autobot and his human pet and made it back to the hotel without incident. Onslaught and the creature with whom he had become infatuated were no longer in the lobby as I passed through it to knock on the door of Swindle’s room. 

“Hey, Benny. What do you need?” Swindle asked, sounding entirely too cheerful for someone whose teammate had gotten their arm stuck in a human contraption. It seemed that they had managed to free Vortex from the toilet. 

“Is Brawl still here?” I asked. 

“Nope. As soon as he got Tex’s arm out of the toilet, he went back to his room,” Swindle replied. 

“I see. In that case, I think that I will retire for the night.” 

“See you in the mornin’, Blast Off ol’ buddy!” Swindle exclaimed. My suspicions were immediately raised. The friendlier Swindle sounds, the more likely it is that he’s scheming. 

“I don’t know what you want from me, but the answer is no,” I said. With that, I headed back to my room. Upon letting myself inside, I was confronted with a sopping-wet Brawl. 

“What happened to you?” I asked. 

“I got a little wet while I was pulling Vortex’s arm outta that toilet thing,” Brawl replied. I decided that I really did not want the details. Unfortunately, Brawl decided to provide them unprompted. 

“You shoulda been there, Blasty! I dunno what Tex had been doin’ in there ‘fore I showed up, but he was real stuck. I hadta pull on him so hard to get it out that the force caused me to slip an’ fall into somethin’ Swindle called a tub, and it was full of water, so I got wet. And then Onslaught showed up an’ yelled at Swindle for lettin’ Vortex make a mess of the room,” he bellowed enthusiastically. 

“That’s fascinating, Brawl. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go into recharge. Today has been the worst day of my entire life, and I would very much like to forget what has happened for awhile,” I said. 

“Swindle says the squishies call it sleeping,” Brawl volunteered. 

“I am not a “squishy”,” I replied. With that, I laid down on one of the recharging centers and, overcome with exhaustion, I fell into slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.


End file.
